frenchi, first I am not leaping into this, which is why I am here asking. I actually called a structural engineer on possibly changing a stairway and he said, just ask a competenant contractor. Maybe he just didn't want to mess with a small project.....
I am also going to through this out there....
I already have a window on the same wall. I'm not actually sure if the window opens, I'm not sure I've messed with it, some of them are screwed shut. This window is actually under a bay window box out, which might be why they were able to install it. Maybe the bay window changed the load!!?
Yes, I can lower the height of the opening, it's not a big deal, just need room to get into the "hole". I can also shift left/right/up/down. One other thing that may or may not be important, this is on the gable end of the wall and like I said this "door" would go into a box out. Because it goes into a box out, there is actually no wall directly above where I want to put the opening. The wall is about 4' south. I've attached a pic to hopefully explain this. Again the yellow box is approx where I want the door.
I know a gable end doesn't carry as much weight as the side walls. Then add to that, the joist is really only carrying the weight of the floor, no walls. What I don't know is what harm it would do adding the "door" to the wall considering there is already a questionablly framed window on the same wall. The part that also confuses me a bit is the direction of the floor joists. Like I said they run North to South, which are the gable ends of the house. The East and West walls are where all the weight should be, yet, these walls aren't sitting on the joists, just the sill plate! This must be balloon framed?
What if anything does all of this change? I could easily add a 2x8 header, which thinking back to my framing days, should easily be enough, but if I do, I have to take one more row of blocks out. I would think the fewer rows disturbed the better.
Oh yeah, if this makes ANY difference, I will be building a 2x4 wall 16" on center about 2" inside the cinder block wall, so that I may finish out the basement. This would also add some stability to the joists. It won't be a floaiting wall, as that isn't done around here.